Esther 4:1

1. Mordecai rent his clothes The customary sign of bitter grief. See 2 Samuel 1:11, note. A like sign was also the putting on of sackcloth sad sitting in ashes, (Job 2:8; Jonah 3:6,) or sprinkling ashes upon the head. Mordecai also, in expression of his most intense agony, cried with a loud and a bitter cry. Compare Genesis 27:34. Similar exhibitions of grief were customary with the Persians. When tidings of Xerxes’ defeat at Salamis reached Shushan all the people “rent their garments and uttered unbounded shouts and lamentations.” Herod., 8:99.